Explain the Title: Developing Your Church Organization

I could have chosen a lot of other titles, and chose this one for several reasons

1. Scriptures seems to be generally silent on the topic of church organizational structure. Other than the oversight role of elders, within which pastor-teachers seem to have a role (1 Tim 5:17), the other organizational relationships in the church seem to be open to the leading of the Spirit in the local context. So Scripture leaves us freedom to design (reorganize) our structures in whatever way will make our churches more effective.

2. Scripture is clear that there are organizational roles that should be manifested in the local church. In addition to the oversight role of the elders and pastor-teachers, there is the gift of leadership (Rom. 12:8) and administration (1 Cor 12:28). My point is not that these gifts are more important than others, rather that they are just as necessary as the others.
(For those who believe gifts have ceased, my argument is that even apart from spiritual gifts, the common grace of God clearly distributes a variety of strengths among people, and that there is a subset among them of organizational strengths. For example see the list of strengths from Buckingham and Gallup in Now, Discover Your Strengths).

3. My personal observation is that there is a tendency for the local church to generally "do" shepherding well, and to generally not "do" leadership and administration (management) as well. What I mean by that is that the things of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care are important and they certainly deserve a central place in the outworking of the mission of the church. But, when they are prioritized at the expense of leadership and management we are missing an important element of God's design for the church.

4. My own experience (and that of others) is that as the church grows, and for it to grow, the church must intentionally work on its organization for growth. How often? How? Those questions can only be answered locally based on help from others and God's leading. In my own experience, we have gone through 4 or 5 major organizational changes as our weekend attendance has grown from 120 to 1400+. To accomplish those changes required that we had a mind set to develop our church organization.

So bear with me. If this blog's title seems a little "in your face", at least I have your attention. And maybe as we dialogue, it won't seem so bad.